


The Buck Fifty

by jerseydevious



Series: Pocket Change [2]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Batman-Baby Relationship, Bruce Wayne Gets a Hug, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic CSA, check the AN for more detailed warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 10:57:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19171864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/pseuds/jerseydevious
Summary: In 1971, the best hot dog in Gotham City cost a dollar and fifty cents; and Alfred Pennyworth sat with Bruce Wayne on a park bench, a grease-stained paper bag separating them, staring directly ahead with their hands folded in their laps in precisely the same way. Bruce made no move to eat and Alfred made no move to force him. In the two months since his parents’ murders the boy had thinned and his skin held a sickly gray color and thick purple-and-blue shadows had appeared beneath his eyes, and in those two months, Alfred had not embraced him once. Bruce had flinched away, every single time, so they sat there together in their mutual silence, and they did not eat, and they did not touch.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys. You don't super need to read the last fic, but it helps, and it's pretty short. This one's gonna........... do more stuff. If you're here from BM, you know that this is based off of MAJOR MAJOR extrapolation from some super sketchy lines in Batman: Gothic, because what's fandom for, if not to take things from canon and shout LET'S TALK ABOUT IT BUT WITH MORE HUGS?
> 
> Check the notes at the end for more detailed warnings. AO3 provides a funky little link to it right there. Thank you, AO3.

In 1971, the best hotdog in Gotham City cost a dollar and fifty cents. 

 

It was a secret Thomas Wayne had given Alfred on the day he interviewed him; he’d asked Alfred to meet him at the corner of Adams and Englehart, and Alfred had showed up impeccably dressed with an M1911A1 hidden by his coat. His service days were over, but Alfred was a cautious man. Thomas had met him on the street corner with a great grin, and when Alfred offered his hand, Thomas ignored it and embraced him instead.

 

Then Thomas had stepped back, grinned some more, and said, “So you’re Jarvis’s boy. No need to look so spiffy.” 

 

“This is an interview, is it not,” Alfred had said, smoothing the rumpled lines in his suit Thomas had created. He masked his curiosity with a smooth, clean expression; this was the man his father had left his family behind to work with, for the last three years. This was the man his father had died with. 

 

Thomas raised one brow perfectly, and then his smile seemed to stretch even wider. He said, “Why, of course not. You’re already hired. I liked Jarvis a lot, honestly. Like an old grandfather—I’m hoping you an’ I can be friends, you know. Starting with lunch. Jimmy, my boy!” 

 

Thomas had turned to a man sitting behind a hot dog cart and embraced him—Jimmy, presumably. Jimmy was both taller and wider (especially in the middle) than Thomas, but his smile could not nearly eclipse Thomas’s, though it tried. 

 

“Mr. Wayne!” Jimmy called. “How’s the wife?”

 

“Good Lord, she’s picky,” Thomas said with a wink. “Just last week I couldn’t find a thing she wanted. She’s big, now, too. She’ll pop any day.” 

 

_ Pregnant, _ Alfred realized, idly. Mrs. Wayne was pregnant. In his last letter, his father had specified Mrs. Wayne had been with child, but it took a moment to connect the mysterious Waynes of his fathers’ letters to the Waynes that lived and breathed in the States. Hard to draw lines between ghosts and men.

Thomas leaned with his elbow on the hot dog cart, and jerked his head to Alfred. “Jimmy, how ‘bout you hook my new buddy here up with one of your famous dogs? He’s an Englishman, y’see. He hasn’t had real food.” 

 

Alfred had half a mind to protest; but then he remembered his final meal at home, a tin of beans poured on toast while standing over the sink so as not to dirty a plate. Breathing quietly and biting slowly so as not to wake his mother, asleep in the adjacent living room. A ritual he had lived many times in childhood and many times since.

 

“I’m Jimmy,” Jimmy said. He stuck out his hand and Alfred dutifully shook it. “Wha’cha like?”   
  


“Uh,” Alfred said, intelligently. 

 

Thomas dropped two twenty dollar bills on the shiny metal surface. “Two with everything. Let Al here experience a dog the way a dog was intended.” 

 

So Alfred met Thomas Wayne, hot dogs, and then the best hot dog in Gotham City—and perhaps the world—on a cold, brisk day in January. 

 

In 1964, the best hot dog in Gotham City cost a dollar and twenty-five cents; it came with relish and chili and ketchup and mustard and all of the standard fixings of a hot dog, delivered hot but not too hot, and it was delightfully messy to eat. He and Tommy visited that same hot dog stand maybe a seventy-five times a year, give or take. The price didn’t increase to a dollar and fifty cents until the summer of 1970, but Tommy continued to pay twenty dollars for each—when asked why, Tommy only said, “It’s worth a lot more.” 

 

In 1971, the best hot dog in Gotham City cost a dollar and fifty cents; and Alfred Pennyworth sat with Bruce Wayne on a park bench, a grease-stained paper bag separating them, staring directly ahead with their hands folded in their laps in precisely the same way. Bruce made no move to eat and Alfred made no move to force him. In the two months since his parents’ murders the boy had thinned and his skin held a sickly gray color and thick purple-and-blue shadows had appeared beneath his eyes, and in those two months, Alfred had not embraced him once. Bruce had flinched away, every single time, so they sat there together in their mutual silence, and they did not eat, and they did not touch.

 

Thomas Wayne had been a man fond of contact—he was constantly holding his son’s hand or wrapping an arm around him or ruffling his hair. Bruce, in turn, was a similar kind of affectionate, and was pressed into Alfred’s side frequently, or reached out for Alfred’s hand to lead him places, or wrapped his arms around Alfred’s legs. Alfred worried, and he worried deeply, because since the murders Bruce had ducked away from all contact Alfred tried to initiate. How could you comfort a boy who was so desperate to escape that very thing—was it maybe that Alfred was the wrong man, that Alfred was only hurting him more by his inaction, that Alfred was pushing too hard as it were?

 

“Lovely day,” Alfred said, absently. 

 

Bruce did not respond. He never did. Since the murders, on seven different days, Bruce had spoken, and on no others—sometimes, Alfred managed to make him laugh, but it was rare. He had a good feeling about today; Bruce had written down on his notepad that he wanted to go to the hot dog stand, and it was an odd initiative but any initiative from the boy at this point was to be held onto for dear life. 

 

“Dr. Thompkins was glad to see you.” 

 

Bruce blinked big gray eyes at him. Alfred smiled at him, hesitantly, and Bruce smiled back just slightly, just that curious tick of the mouth.

 

“I’m going to lose all my bloody hair because of you,” Alfred said. “But you are worth it, Master Bruce. I do so mean that..”

 

Bruce shook his head.

 

“Yes. You are.”

 

Bruce shook his head again, harder. 

 

“Ah. You meant the hair. I rather believe it is already thinning, wouldn’t you say?”

 

Bruce grinned, and ruffled his hair until he looked like a duckling, and then looked back up at Alfred, biting his lip. His eyes were turned up impishly at the corners.

 

Alfred ran a hand through his hair, yanking on a strand and pinning it between his forefinger and thumb, and presented it to Bruce. “Aha! A casualty.” 

 

“Cheating,” Bruce said. His voice was creaky like old wooden boards from how little he spoke.

 

Alfred pressed a hand to his chest. “Well, I never.” 

 

Bruce giggled. Alfred basked in that moment, basked in it like a cat in the sun; then the good mood seemed to leak out of Bruce—he stared down at his shoes and swung one leg so it brushed against the grass, tiny shoulders slumping downward.  _ Come here my boy,  _ Alfred wanted to say, and then he would tug Bruce into his arms and hold him and brush his hair back and say any of the hundred and fifty things running through his head, and the joy it’d be, just to be able to  _ hold _ him again, the pure  _ joy  _ of it. 

 

But Bruce refused to hear him, and Alfred had no idea how to reach him. 

 

-

 

“I, uh. I got hot dogs.”

 

Alfred twisted in his chair. Bruce was standing at the door of the conservatory, looking unaffected by the heat despite the thick black sweater he was wearing, one paper bag balanced on his hip, a baby balanced on the other. 

 

“They’re from the diner. Fenderz, the new one.” Bruce dropped the bag on the ground by Alfred’s feet and sat back in the chair beside Alfred with a huff, adjusted his hold so the baby’s head was leaned against his chest. A pudgy hand gripped one finger losely.

 

Alfred paused his knitting to adjust his bifocals. “Should I ask about the child or not.”

 

Bruce leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He rocked the baby slowly and easily and naturally—once, there had been a time when Alfred didn’t know how good with children Bruce was. Once, before Master Dick, Alfred had believed Bruce to be someone disinclined to family. Bruce continually surprised him.

 

“Possibly not,” Bruce said. 

 

“Oh, dear.”

 

“I don’t think it is technically illegal to pull a baby from where it had been left,” Bruce said, calmly. It was a voice of forced calm. When he spoke again, his voice was like acid: “In a  _ dumpster.” _

 

Alfred swallowed against the bile in his throat. “A dumpster, you say,” he said, and he aimed for dispassion, but he could not keep the thin thread of rage out of his voice. 

 

“I want to bury someone’s teeth in their throat.”

 

Alfred remembered holding Bruce, the night Bruce was born—his arms wrapped around that strangely quiet child that had chosen to babble only at Alfred, as if Alfred were a friend of his—and then he thought of that very same boy left alone to—

 

“I do not blame you, nor would I stop you, my boy.” 

 

Bruce looked down at the baby in his arms and pressed a kiss to the peach fuzz over his scalp. “We’ll find him a home,” he said, and that anger from just moments before had melted into something soft, something gently protective. 

 

“How is your wound,” Alfred asked. “You’ve not complained once, which means you very well could be dying right under my nose.” 

 

Bruce rolled his shoulder, winced slightly. “It’s fine. Worth it.” 

 

“You know, you asked a curious thing of me, that night as I was treating it. You had a rather high fever, you may not recall.” 

 

Bruce looked down at the baby in his arms. “He’s quiet. Leslie said he was fine, but maybe I should take him to a pediatrician.” 

 

“You said you had something you wished to discuss with me,” Alfred continued, ignoring that Bruce had spoken at all. 

 

Bruce shifted to stretch his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. He observed the conservatory for a moment, basking in the thick, lush green plant life and the sun cutting in through the windows. Bruce had always enjoyed being in the conservatory, as much a creature of the night as he insisted he was. “I had a question,” he said. 

 

“Fire away,” Alfred said. He turned back to his knitting, twisting his wrists in, out—perhaps he’d turn this scarf into a baby blanket, for the child. 

 

“It is possibly philosophical.” 

 

“We have had a number of philosophical debates.” 

 

Bruce paused and sucked in a breath. “How do people do… this to children,” he said. “That is my question. How does someone—leave a child in a  _ dumpster,  _ of all places. I understand desperation. But this is a  _ child.”  _

 

“May I,” Alfred said. 

 

Bruce grunted, which Alfred took to mean  _ yes, you may.  _

 

“May I just point out that the unfortunate circumstance of this young one is new to you, and that this was most definitely not the question you intended on proposing to me initially. And may I further extrapolate, you would therefore be stalling,” Alfred said. 

 

“Coincidence,” Bruce said. “It’s been on my mind. The recent case, you know.” 

 

“I do not need to tell you that our world is occupied by monsters. You know this better than anyone.”

 

Alfred turned to look at him, then, over his bifocals, and Bruce’s gaze was distant, his eyes glassy. “Yes,” he said, voice somewhat hoarse, “yes, I suppose. I think I have gone about this incorrectly.”

 

“How so?” Alfred asked. 

 

“Robert Willow was a predator who groomed children by staking out a corner and striking up relationships with the children walking home from school,” Bruce said. His voice had snapped into scientific cleanness, any emotional reaction he might have to the words he spoke hidden behind pragmatism and cold logic. “We’ll never know how many children he sexually abused. But that’s an oddity, isn’t it. It’s rarely the man standing on the street corner. It’s usually someone that had been—entrusted, with that child’s care.”

 

“Indeed.” Alfred peered at him curiously. He thought of Master Tim, nervously wringing his hands, mumbling,  _ he… he punched Livingfield, I don’t know why. Livingfield said something about—Bruce hurting us, and Bruce just lost it. He just lost it.  _

 

“How are you supposed to trust anyone, as a parent,” Bruce said. “How did  _ you.” _

 

“I trusted who your father trusted.” 

 

Bruce stood up, quickly, jerkily, his face drained of blood in an instant. “I’m taking him to a pediatrician. No. Back to Leslie. He’s too quiet.” 

 

“My boy,” Alfred said, lowly, “sit. The child is fine. You were similarly quiet, as a lad.” 

 

Bruce was not moving, nor did it look like he was breathing. He stood completely and eerily still until he snarled,  _ “What _ did you just call me.”

 

“Are you angry with me because I implied you were, of course, at one point a lad, or am I mishearing,” Alfred said. Every inch of him felt tense—Bruce was behaving oddly, and after decades Alfred had learned to decipher the kinds of odd Bruce could be. But this was uncalled for. The idea that he could still be surprised by his boy even now after all this time was an unpleasant one.

 

“Stop saying it,” Bruce hissed. The baby, perhaps sensing tension, had begun to stir, small angry little mumbles.

 

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said, softly. “Sit down. Sit, and tell me what I should not say, and I will cease saying it at once.”

 

Bruce sat down slowly. He offered the baby his finger, and the baby was happy to grip it about as tightly as he could and nuzzle deeper into the blankets. They were elephant patterned, a kind blue, splashed with gentle greens.

 

“This is not the conversation I intended to have,” Bruce said. 

 

Alfred looked at him. Lines were carved around his eyes; crow’s feet, worry lines, but laugh lines on the rare occasion Bruce smiled. “And what is?”

 

“I meant,” Bruce stopped, breathing in deeply, rigidly, “to say that I put a man named Dr. Gregory Martin behind bars years ago for the same crimes as Robert Willow. He died in prison, three years ago, actually. I kept track of him.”

 

Alfred recognized that name; but he couldn’t seem to place it. Old, in his memory, though—Alfred prided himself on keeping his current affairs in order. For him to forget a face was rare. 

 

“You have put many monsters in prison during your career.” 

 

“This was personal,” Bruce said. It was a sentence that cost him a great deal to say; he deflated almost as soon as he said it like something had been ripped from him, and kept his eyes carefully trained on Alfred. It annoyed him to no end when Bruce decided a conversation was one man holding the cards and expecting the other to know his hand; his boy lived leaps ahead in thought, and rarely did he decide to let anyone catch up. 

 

“I suppose I wanted to apologize. For… how I was, as a kid. That wasn’t your fault,” Bruce said.

 

“Dr. Martin was a teacher,” Alfred said. Cold. Cold, it was freezing cold, but was it not August? “He—your father talked of him. I met him, when I accompanied your father to—”

 

Bruce stood. “I was a fucked up kid,” he said. “Now you know why. That’s the thing I needed to tell you. Enjoy your lunch.” He left, baby in tow, as if he had not just taken a match to Alfred’s understanding and watched it burn to ash. He left, as if he had not left a trail of ash behind him.

 

Alfred did not move for hours after that. He did not return to his knitting, and he barely even remembered seeing directly ahead; but he did remember thinking, over and over,  _ I will raise that man from the dead myself just to kill him again.  _ He would only use the shotgun after the bastard was down, and he’d stuff the barrel directly in the bastard’s mouth and pull the trigger, and for once—for the first time in his life—he would enjoy the fine spray of blood that spattered him. He wanted the crunch of bone beneath his fist and the mewls of a man who knew why, exactly, precisely why he deserved every inch of what he got—damn time and damn death itself, for denying him what he wanted to _ take. _

 

He was only pulled from his trance by a vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his phone, and tapped the green accept call button without truly seeing it. He was only hearing imaginary desecration. Deserved, deserved, deserved. 

 

_ “Al!” _ Dick shrieked.  _ “Alfie, Al. Hiya. So, family dinner tonight, very exciting. I was thinking, y’know, I just got off my shift. Well, not just got off, more got off five hours ago, and immediately went to sleep, and I forgot! I forgot to make something for dinner, even though I really meant to this time—” _

 

“I,” Alfred said quietly, “seem—seem to have forgotten entirely about the dinner myself.”

 

_ “What? I—Al, are you okay? I’m calling Bruce—”  _

 

“Do not under any circumstances call your father. I am an old man, and I am bound to forget things, it is my right. What you will do, however, is to go to the one decent pizzeria in this blasted city and take your family’s order.”

 

Alfred rose, stiffly. His hip popped and his knees ground like crunching gravel. Old man was entirely too accurate. 

 

_ “Okay, alright, okay. But just—go lie down for me, okay? Take it easy, pops. We all love you.” _

 

“Fool children,” Alfred muttered, but he couldn’t force the fond smile off his face. Hard to think of pain, when that particular child was talking to you.

 

-

 

Bruce made an appearance for dinner an hour and a half late, with one half of his hair sticking up like the business end of a porcupine, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand. In the other, he balanced the baby, who really looked rather pleased with himself. 

 

The hour and a half prior to that had been filled with quite enough napkin-throwing for Alfred’s tastes, and other such foolishness, though Alfred considered the napkin-throwing the most annoying of it. Damian tried to play pinfinger, insisting he could do it better than Tim; Dick regaled everyone with a story from his days in the Teen Titans he had told each of them individually numerous times and at least three times collectively; Stephanie ate a slice of pizza with every topping ordered affixed on top; and Tim tried to play pinfinger to insist he could do it better than Damian. Bruce’s absence had been noted but in passing, but not much worried about, because Bruce was frequently late to family dinners in favor of sleeping in. He usually arrived in whatever he had fallen asleep in, whether it be pajamas or the cape and cowl itself. It was amusing to see the Batman sit at the table and eat his vegetables, so much so that Alfred rarely asked him to put on normal clothing, on those occasions. 

 

Even so he was later than usual, which Alfred suspected had something to do with the little tyke, from the exhausted (but no less kind) way that Bruce was regarding him now. 

 

“I think we should keep him and name him Charlie,” Steph said. 

 

“Name him Tim,” Tim said. “Except instead of Timothy, it’s Timtholomew.” 

 

Damian scrunched his nose. “You are a disgusting fool, Drake.” 

 

“If we’re doing that I vote it’s Richard Timtholomew, except we actually call him Richard,” Dick said, taking a sip of his water. 

 

Cass slipped out of her chair to peer over the baby, waving her hand. “Hi,” she said. 

 

Bruce plucked up the baby’s wrist and waved his hand. “He says hi.”

 

“Disgusting!” Damian shouted, around a simply devilish little grin. 

 

“I think it’s cute!” Steph argued, rocking her chair off of the ground.

 

Alfred pointed to her. “Four legs on the ground, if you will.” 

 

Steph groaned, “You’re like an uncool kindergarten teacher!” but the chair’s front legs hit the carpet with a thud. 

 

“Quiet,” Bruce ordered. 

 

It was rather incredible, how a simple change in tone could snuff out so much chaos, like a cap over a candle. Incredible, how readily they listened to him—Alfred half-wished he’d had that same power, when Bruce was a boy. 

 

Bruce hefted the baby higher up on his hip. “I have this child for the next week. He’s a foster case, and no, he does not have a name, and no, we are not going to name him. This is his temporary home, and I expect him to be treated in kind. Because he needs someone to look after him, I won’t be able to patrol as much as normal. I need you to pick up the slack.”

 

“Aye aye, cap’n,” Dick said, complete with an overexaggerated salute.

 

Tim laughed. “Shut up, you idiot.” 

 

“I am only the finest of idiots,” Dick said. He draped an arm over the back of his chair, and with his other hand, gestured to himself. “Any idiot connoisseur would agree, I am the absolute highest of quality.” 

 

“You’re the best idiot,” Bruce said, flatly. 

 

Steph pointed her empty cup at Dick, wagging it threateningly. “That was my official title, you asshole.” 

 

“You can all be the best idiot,” Bruce said, louder and flatter. “As long as all of you best idiots handle patrol without me.”

 

Cass raised her hand. “I am bestest idiot,” she said, with a grin. 

 

“You’re the worst, Cass,” Tim said. 

 

“Yes,” she said, and then she bent down to press a kiss to Tim’s forehead. Tim squawked angrily. 

 

“Best idiots, listen to bestest idiot,” Bruce said. “And your eldest.”   
  


“I’m gonna be pretty swamped in ‘Haven for the next three days. Major bust happening. I’ll try to be here as much as I can.” Dick downed the rest off his glass, looking sheepish. 

 

“Hn,” Bruce said. He scowled darkly. “Steph, if you feel the need, contact the Birds of Prey. Remember Batwoman’s on the streets, too.”

 

“I can do it,” Tim suggested. 

 

Bruce huffed. “I know. I trust you. But you can’t cover an entire city a man down.” 

 

Alfred stood, because if he did not, he would point out that Bruce had once tried to cover the entire city, nightly, on his own. “This discussion is in no way fit for a family mealtime. I suggest it be tabled until things are moved downstairs.” 

 

“I’ve said my piece,” Bruce grunted, his eyes already back on the baby. They crinkled at the corners with a smile that didn’t quite reach his mouth. “She’s right, you would make a good Charlie.” 

 

“That’s what I’m saying! He’s got the nose, he fits the bill, it’s a perfect name,” Steph said. 

 

The shouts of laughter died down as the night fell—Bruce, for once, didn’t bother hovering in the Cave, micromanaging every aspect of his children’s operation, as he was wont to do when he was otherwise benched. He instead paced back and forth in the study by the grandfather clock, holding a squalling baby against his shoulder and rocking him side to side, singing half-lullabies. 

 

“It may aid you to learn the lyrics, someday,” Alfred commented dryly, sliding the grandfather clock back into place behind him. He’d just seen the children off—Nightwing, unfortunately, straight back to Bludhaven, the rest of them out into Gotham’s violent night. 

 

Bruce leaned the baby forward and said to him, very seriously, “Tell Alfred you don’t even know what I’m saying, sweetheart, you just like the sound of it.”

 

The baby’s crying was interrupted by a confused gurgle. 

 

“Exactly,” Bruce answered. He tucked the baby back into the crook of his shoulder. “Tomorrow I need you to run to the store. Baby formula, diapers, the nine yards. We’re about out of everything we had.”

 

Alfred settled on the couch. “Of course, sir.”

 

They didn’t speak again until the baby’s cries subsided into sad hiccups, which turned into delighted giggles when Bruce blew kisses just over the baby’s belly button over and over, which then became soft little breaths as the child eased off into sleep. 

 

Bruce lowered himself onto the couch beside Alfred. He adjusted blankets here and there, keeping the baby perfectly swaddled—Alfred thought of his knitting, abandoned in the conservatory, and swallowed hard around the sudden frog in his throat. 

 

“I’m sorry you missed this,” Alfred said, quietly. 

 

Bruce jerked his head up. “What?”

 

“With your own children. This stage. It is rather precious.” 

 

_ You were not my boy then but I treasured the times I had with you all the same, _ Alfred thought. 

 

Bruce smiled down at the baby. “It is,” he agreed. 

 

Alfred should have seen it coming, Bruce’s adoration for children; babies, in particular. There was no singular human in more need of absolute protection than a baby, especially an infant—it cut Bruce deeply, to see any sort of harm inflicted on one. The first case he had ever worked with dead infants he had come home to Alfred nearly in tears.  _ Al, Al, they killed infants. Three of them, Al, I think we live in hell. _

 

“A dumpster,” Bruce said. “Someone put this baby in a fucking dumpster. All of the doorsteps in Gotham City, all of the public avenues for this baby to be found by someone who would care for him, and they—they put him in a  _ dumpster.”  _

 

Alfred reached out and clasped Bruce’s shoulder, trying to convey  _ I understand _ and  _ people can be monsters, _ but what he was thinking was _ someone hurt my son deeply and awfully decades ago and I have no idea how to speak with him anymore, and I am so filled with useless rage that I am forgetting myself.  _

 

“Are you alright?” Bruce asked. 

 

Alfred straightened his back self-consciously. “Quite so. Why?”

 

“Dick mentioned to me on the phone you might be sick,” Bruce said, carefully. 

 

“You know I am not.” 

 

Bruce was silent. It was a heavy, awkward silence that draped over them both like a lead weight. Finally Bruce broke it by saying, “I’m sorry. For earlier.” 

 

“I would do so many things,” Alfred whispered. “I would do so many things, I would suffer endlessly, if it meant you would never apologize to me about this again. There are no apologies you need to make to myself or anyone else.”

 

Bruce ducked his head. The tips of his ears were pink. “Hnh.”

 

“I say this with the utmost seriousness.”

 

“You say everything with the utmost seriousness, you always have.”

 

Alfred frowned. “Master Bruce, my boy—my conviction on this is as strong as steel. This is not an area in which you need to apologize, for anything.”

 

Bruce pressed a kiss to the fluff clinging to the baby’s scalp. “I’m going to put him down.”

 

Bruce pushed himself off of the couch and disappeared down the hallway. Alfred folded his hands in his lap, stretched out and crossed his ankles, and closed his eyes. He focused on breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth, easy, slow, even.  _ He is alive and here with me,  _ he thought to himself.  _ He is alive and here with me, and he is relatively alright. Alive and here with me. Alive.  _

 

“Taking a nap?”

 

“Insolent twat,” Alfred said, smiling half to himself. He patted the couch next to him. 

 

Bruce dropped into the space beside him. “Long day,” he said, resting with his hands steepled over his stomach, eyes drifting shut. 

 

“I am about to make it longer.”

 

“Funny, that. Can’t anyone ever make it shorter.”

 

“You are not lucky yet, dear boy,” Alfred said. “There is a conversation I want to have with you.”

 

“Can I make a coffee first,” Bruce grumbled. His eyes were still closed. Alfred almost felt bad, pressuring Bruce the way he was, when he was certain Bruce’s tiredness was not feigned; but Bruce was open so very rarely, he had to press what little advantage he had. 

 

“You were eight years of age, I assume.”

 

Bruce opened one eye and looked at him. “I never said anything about being interrogated, Alfred.”

 

“Would you like me to stop?”

 

Bruce froze for a moment. It was a long, aching moment. Then he said, “Let’s have a philosophical discussion. I think life is a bitch, and that is the exact wording I would use. I survived this just fine, for nearly forty years. The man himself is dead. Then I put the man who did the same to my son, before I even knew him, in prison for life. And now,  _ now,  _ I have to live with the consequences—nothing I haven’t done before, but it just doesn’t work like it used to. I think life is a bitch, yeah.”

 

“That,” Alfred said, “is… a long time. To do something alone.”

 

Bruce opened his eyes, finally, and raised one brow at Alfred. “Hypocrite,” he said. “You handle everything alone. Don't be upset if I followed in your footsteps." 

 

“I think of you as my son,” Alfred said, horrified to find his voice thick with tears. “It is—nearly forty years. Nearly forty. Good Christ. Good  _ Christ, _ my boy.”

 

Bruce turned away. “I’m fine,” he said, which was his reflexive answer for whenever he was starting to feel uncomfortable. It was time to leave him be.

 

Alfred wiped his eyes quickly. “Forgive me. And you must know, you were worth it. I will not lie and say raising you was not… stressful. But you were worth every second of it. You  _ are _ worth it, now.”

 

Bruce pressed his hands over his mouth. “Alright,” he said. “Fine. I think things could have been a hell of a lot easier on you, but fine, if you insist on being stubborn.” Bruce stood. “‘Night, Al.”

 

Alfred watched him go, and did not move for hours after that. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was, uh, mean to Alfred. Check the bottom AN for warnings.

Alfred pushed open the kitchen entrance, his arms laden with bags—it was seven in the morning on a Gotham weekday, and the morning was chill enough to prick the skin and raise the hairs but not particularly chilly. It was brilliantly sunny, however, soft and gold and warm, and Alfred thought it would be another fine day to sit in the conservatory, if he could stomach sitting in his pulled-out chair with his knitting sat on the floor to the left and hearing _now you know why_ ringing in his ears. 

 

“—I’d bet I’d move it on a little farther down the line, far from Folsom Prison,” Bruce rumbled. “That’s where I want to stay, and I’d let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.”

 

“That is far from a proper lullaby,” Alfred said, dropping his cloth shopping bags on the kitchen island. He slid them off and rolled his wrists—they ached more, now, carrying in groceries than they used to. Typically they had their (admittedly massive) grocery list delivered, but there was no time to wait for a delivery with a hungry baby in the house. 

 

Bruce raised his head from where it was craned to the baby’s, frowning.  The baby stopped his wailing briefly to hiccup at the sudden change in scenery, and he hiccuped twice, definitively more frustrated the second time. “It’s perfectly fine,” Bruce said. 

 

“‘I shot a man in Reno’?” Alfred asked.

 

“It’s a cautionary tale.” 

 

“Hmph. Call someone, we need to put these away—I’ve some odds and ends in that bag, the closest to you. The rest is yours.”

 

Bruce kicked off the counter he was leaned against, ducked his head outside the kitchen doorway, and bellowed over the wailing, “Tim!” The baby looked briefly surprised at this new challenger to his dominion, and so opened his mouth wide to scream an ear-splitting scream directly in Bruce’s ear. Alfred winced. 

 

Alfred reached out and tapped a bag. “Diapers, baby powder, baby wipes, changing wipes, baby oil, shampoo and soap.” Alfred paused. “Also diaper cream, I believe. I purchased both. In this one, bottles, bottle brushes, formula, burp cloths, onesies. A few sleepers. I also purchased swaddling blankets. I know we have quite a few of those already, I just—thought it prudent to replace them. There’s several medicines in a bag in the car, I believe, I couldn’t carry it.” 

 

What Alfred did not want to admit was that he’d fretted in the aisles for at least forty-five minutes trying to determine what it was, exactly, Bruce had asked for—after their conversation the night prior Bruce had messaged him a shopping list, but Alfred had forgotten his phone in his haste to leave for the store this morning. He also did not want to admit that he’d forgotten the bag in the car rather than having been unable to carry it, and that he hadn’t slept last night, rather laid awake in bed thinking _now I know._

 

Bruce frowned. “We had most of this.” 

 

Alfred coughed. “Yes, well. Now we have more. We can offer the extra onesies to Master Tim when he comes down, they should be about his size.” 

 

Bruce chuckled, and then asked, “Did you get any candy?” 

 

Alfred shot him a sour look. “How old are you, sir.” 

 

“It’s a simple question.” 

 

“Mine was simpler,” Alfred said, primly. “Do shout for Tim again.”

 

Bruce leaned outside the doorway and shouted, “Damian!” 

 

Alfred raised a brow. 

 

“I think Tim is downstairs,” Bruce answered. To the baby, he said, “You’ve quite the set of lungs, son. Al, I think he’s starving. Can you—?”

 

“Of course,” Alfred said. 

 

Alfred shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the chair, and unbuttoned his sleeves, rolling them up past the elbows, and he washed his hands quickly in the sink. He plucked a bottle out of the shopping bag and washed it quickly, rinsing it out, and then filled it with tap water. He spooned formula from the can into the bottle, screwed the cap on, and twisted his wrist back and forth. He tested it by squirting it against his wrist, and then passed the bottle off to Bruce.

 

Bruce offered the bottle. The baby scrunched his nose up and howled. 

 

“C’mon, kid,” Bruce muttered. He offered the bottle again and the baby howled again, so Bruce set the bottle on the counter and shifted to rocking the baby and singing. “I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rollin’ round the bend, and I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when—I’m stuck in Folsom Prison, and time keeps draggin’ on.”

 

“Cautionary tale,” Alfred huffed. 

 

Like any member of this blasted family, Damian was silent when he wanted to be, but that apparently wasn’t today, because pounding footsteps and scattered barks hailed his arrival. “I’m here, Father,” he said, breathlessly. He scowled at the baby in Bruce’s arms. 

 

Bruce jerked his head at the groceries on the island. “Put those away, Alfred did all the work of shopping, let him sit down. Hush, hush, I’m getting back to it. When I was just a baby, my mama told me ‘son, always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns—’”

 

“Yes, Father,” Damian said. “Sit,” he told Titus, and Titus sat for about four seconds before getting up and trotting off in the opposite direction, no doubt to escape the cacophonous sound of the baby’s crying. 

 

“Is Charlie… alright?” Damian asked, quietly.

 

It took Alfred a moment to realize the question was being addressed to himself. “Oh, babies can be quite, ah, fussy.”

 

It was true, at least in Alfred’s experience—but it was true only of the experiences Alfred had of babies Bruce had fostered briefly in his years as Batman, because Bruce himself had been an unnaturally quiet child. There were times when he’d been watching Bruce, that he’d had to lay his hand against the boy’s chest just to see if he were breathing still, he’d been so quiet. 

 

“Master Damian, go out to the car,” Alfred ordered. 

 

“Why?” Damian asked. 

 

“Just do what he tells you,” Bruce snapped. 

 

Damian glared at the ground momentarily, and shelved a container of cottage cheese in the refrigerator before trotting out of the kitchen, stiff-backed. 

 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Bruce said. 

 

Alfred raised a brow. “I was not looking at you in any particular way.”

 

“Now you are.”

 

“Because now you’re being quite the cur.”

 

Bruce shook his head. “Haven’t been sleeping. I have,” he nodded to the baby, “a very opinionated little bunkmate.”

 

“He’s not been crying all night, has he?”

 

“No, just all morning. Still on a nocturnal cycle, I was up all night.”

 

Alfred nodded. He thought about Bruce sitting beside him the night prior, his quiet words, I think life is a bitch, and that is the exact wording I would use. The, but it just doesn’t work like it used to. “I highly doubt,” Alfred said carefully, “that it was your nocturnal cycle that was a problem.” 

 

Bruce flinched. They carefully did not look at each other. There were very few moments where Alfred felt his communication with Bruce was broken, fundamentally incorrect, and unsound; even in the months after Jason’s death, they had understood each other, and they had understood each other often without the need for speech. The understanding had been brutal, but it had been understanding, and now Alfred felt he was shouting through a thunderstorm to a man with cotton in his ears.

 

“I bet there’s rich folks eatin’ in a fancy dinin’ car,” Bruce sang. 

 

Damian swung open the door. “I have acquired the bag,” he announced, dropping it on the island. He returned immediately to the half-unloaded groceries, sliding a plastic box of sliced watermelon off the counter and carrying it to the fridge. 

 

Alfred rooted through the bag until he pulled out a rattling box, which he held out to Bruce, and shook it gently. Bruce shifted his weight to bounce the baby with one arm, and took the box and read the label; “Gas medicine. Al, you might just be my favorite person.” 

 

“I ought to be,” Alfred sniffed. 

 

Bruce administered a dose. This did not please the baby, but there was no pleasing an overtired, hungry baby. 

 

Damian finished packing away the groceries quickly, and Alfred sorted the baby’s new things and climbed the stairs—which his knee was displeased with—to Bruce’s room, and dropped off the bag. There was no evidence of a long and early morning but Alfred could practically taste it all the same. It hung in the ruffled carpet at the foot of the bed where Bruce was fond of pacing, the rumpled blankets, the robe discarded on the vanity. 

 

When he descended, the baby was fussing, although somewhat quieter. 

 

“He is quite determined,” Alfred commented. 

 

Bruce reached out for the bottle on the counter and offered it again—this time, the baby took it into his mouth and began suckling earnestly, and Bruce looked up to grin at Alfred. 

 

Alfred smiled back, and for some unbearably odd reason, he felt as if he’d been stabbed in the heart. 

 

The baby ate desperately and when Bruce burped him, he threw up down the burp cloth, which Alfred promptly took away to the laundry room. When he returned, Bruce was no longer in the kitchen—Alfred followed the sound of his voice down the hall.

 

“Where are you off to,” Alfred called. 

 

Bruce stopped, turned his head. “Den,” he said. “Send Damian in, when you find him.” 

 

Alfred nodded. Bruce turned, picked up at, “Down to San Antone,” and disappeared down the long hallway, Alfred standing alone at the end of it. It was not the first time Alfred had stood in this house and felt unbearably alone, and he had a feeling it would not be the last; it seemed to be his personal, unfortunate directive.

 

Alfred turned on his heel and left through the kitchen door to the conservatory, plucked his knitting from the ground, and turned one needle over the other again and again and again. Now he knew. Now he knew.

 

When Bruce was ten, Alfred hugged him for the first time in two years, and the story of how that happened was beautifully simple; he took Bruce to a therapist who specialized in children, Bruce exited five minutes later with tears streaming down his face and a very confused man standing behind him, and then the boy had wrapped his arms around Alfred’s leg and mumble-whispered, “Can we go.”

 

But before that, Alfred had met with the therapist, whose name was Mr. Chase.

 

“I would require a full background check,” Alfred said. He sat with his back exactly straight and his hands folded primly in his lap. “You understand, of course.” 

 

What Alfred did not say was that he was also hiring a private eye to follow Mr. Chase for exactly three weeks before he’d leave Bruce alone with the man, and that he’d be hiring a separate private eye to follow Mrs. Chase for the same length of time.

 

“Oh, completely,” Mr. Chase said. “I welcome it, in fact.” 

 

“And I expect to be sitting in the waiting room during every session.”

 

What Alfred did not say was that he would be carrying his M1911A1 in his waistband—a weapon he had wounded and, alternately, killed with. 

 

Mr. Chase smiled. “Practically a given. Tell me more about Bruce, Mr. Pennyworth.”

 

Alfred recalled Bruce catching a wolf spider with a cup and a sheet of paper and carrying it outside; he recalled Bruce laughing in his high-pitched giggle; he recalled Bruce offering him a crayon drawing of a dinosaur for Alfred’s birthday. He remembered the way Bruce had lit up when Martha had carried him outside to show him a stray toad that had hopped beneath the patio light, he remembered Bruce’s closed eyes and round cheeks sleeping soundly on the couch over the math homework the tutor had given him—but most clearly in his mind was Bruce’s open-mouthed grin in the photo on Alfred’s nightstand, the one that had been there for a year now, the one Alfred saw when he woke up every morning. 

 

“He’s quiet,” was the only thing Alfred had been able to say. 

 

After he’d had Mr. and Mrs. Chase followed, Alfred had shown up with a sullen, moody Bruce—and although Bruce was still not fond of speaking, Alfred could tell the boy was moody from the way he’d stomped out of the door—and left with a boy that was clinging to him, sobbing so hard the very sound hurt Alfred’s chest. 

 

“What did you do,” Alfred snarled, turning Bruce away from Mr. Chase. 

 

“Nothing,” Mr. Chase said. “We were alone, I introduced myself and asked him how his day was, and he wouldn’t talk, and he just—started crying. Mr. Pennyworth, this isn’t abnormal, but—” 

 

“Consider yourself a failure at your job.”

 

And Alfred had slammed the door behind him. 

 

There was a key word, in what Mr. Chase had said. It was the all-important _but._ Maybe, in the other universes Bruce had discovered in his years with the Justice League, Alfred had calmed Bruce down and stayed to listen—in another universe, Bruce sat in another room sniffling occasionally while he drew in the offered sketchbooks, and Alfred sat while Mr. Chase said, _I think we might have uncovered something._

 

But Alfred lived in this universe, with his own self, and his own Bruce, and that day he’d stormed out and held Bruce close to him for the first time in the longest time. Bruce had shuddered beneath his touch, leaned into it, drank it in. He was far too small, to cry quite like that. Far too little, far too precious—Alfred kept kissing his hair, saying, “It’s all right, dear, it’s alright,” which for a while only made Bruce sob harder, until finally his sobs turned to helpless little whimpers. 

 

“You weren’t there,” Bruce had sobbed, and as it would have turned out, like so many things from when Bruce was young, Alfred read that one sentence entirely, completely, and hopelessly wrong. 

 

But now he knew. 

 

-

 

When Alfred saw who it was that was calling him, he sighed in the dry way reserved for those of his age, and answered it. 

 

“Master Damian,” he said, crisply. 

 

_“Pennyworth, I require your assistance.”_

 

“You will require my assistance in approximately three hours, and not a moment before. Your father is available, I do so believe, and rather more well-equipped than I am to deal with any of your particular brand of… difficulties.” 

 

_“This is about Father.”_

 

Alfred’s brow raised slowly. “Master Damian, are you perhaps laboring under the—”

 

_“I am running out of time, so I will have to make this quick. Pennyworth. There is a matter Father needs to attend to urgently.”_

 

“Please do not interrupt me, child, it is most unbefitting a young man such as yourself.” 

 

Damian was silent. _“Forgive me,”_ he ground out, finally. _“I just wanted to say that there is a convention of… reptile enthusiasts. I have looked into the booking records of this convention and determined that at least three breeders of green anacondas will be present. It is highly unethical—immoral—a crime to the first degree!—to keep an animal such as—”_

 

“Your father has other duties for the moment,” Alfred said, bemused. 

 

_“But this will be our only time to strike! Pennyworth, you have to—”_

 

“A safe night to you, Master Damian.” Alfred tapped the end call button and slid his phone back into his pocket, adjusting his collar. 

 

Gotham City was most famous for its blasted cold. From October to March the city froze over like a lake in winter; but from April to September the city boiled like hot soup. The more people, the more miserable, so Alfred walked as quickly as he could. 

 

Alfred punched in the building code—nineteen thirty-nine—and the security system beeped at him. He swung open the door and breathed air that was not cool but was at least circulated by a large oscillating fan in the corner of the room, and depressed the elevator button. This apartment was only on the second floor, but Alfred’s left knee had no intention of cooperating after a day of sitting in the conservatory, so he would take the elevator for the night. It was a longer walk to apartment twenty-seven, which let the ache in his knee turn into a stinging. Alfred rapped his knuckles against the door. 

 

“Hold on," was shouted from inside. Then there were heavy footsteps, and the door being swung open, revealing a man who ought to have been a boy still. He had a heavy brow over perpetually fever-bright eyes and a nose that sat on his face crookedly, and it was a face that Alfred’s heart leapt at seeing, every single time.

 

Alfred was embraced before he could even work out a greeting. 

 

“It’s good to see you, Alfred,” Jason said, squeezing tightly enough the air was pushed from Alfred’s lungs. 

 

Alfred patted him on the back. Hard to believe, that Jason Todd had once been small at all, but it was indeed true—he had been quite miniscule as Robin, especially next to Batman. “And you as well, my boy. I’m afraid you’ll have to let me go. It is an unfortunate fact of the human condition that we have to breathe.” 

 

That comment earned him another, tighter squeeze, and then Jason pulled away, grinning broadly. “I made spaghetti. I got a fancy baguette, even.” 

 

“You have truly outdone yourself.” 

 

Jason led him in. The apartment was sparse—Jason didn’t live at this apartment, and Alfred suspected he rented it solely for these dinners, because there was a small dining table where the couch should have been, and the only furnished room was the kitchen. 

 

“Sorry that it’s been a while,” Jason said. “Things got—hectic.” 

 

_What kind of hectic,_ Alfred wanted to ask. _What is your definition of hectic, and how many people need to die for it,_ but he held his tongue. He had not served as long as he had to be left unable to control himself when the situation called for it.  “I am sorry to hear that,” Alfred said, instead.

 

Jason shrugged. He wouldn’t meet Alfred’s eyes. “Yeah, uh, hazard of the trade. Sit, sit, everything’s done, I just need to serve it.” 

 

Jason pulled out a chair for him, and Alfred dropped into it gratefully, because the aching in his knee was starting to get sharper. In a few moments, Jason returned with two full plates of spaghetti, each with a bit of bread, and a bottle of red wine held under his arm. It smelled utterly sensational—inviting and warm, like Jason's broad grin at the door. The boy had turned into an excellent cook. They had these dinners infrequently, and under the condition that Alfred never admit their existence to Bruce, but they were a highlight of Alfred’s nights. 

 

“There you are,” Jason said, dropping a plate in front of Alfred. He dropped the other in front of his empty chair, pulled the cork from the wine bottle, and filled both glasses—it was, indeed, a rich red wine, the color of blood that seeped from the veins rather than gushed from an artery—halfway full. He set the bottle in the center of the table, twisting it so Alfred could read the label. 

 

“Oh, napkins.” Jason hopped out of his chair and returned with two napkins. He reached over and tucked one beneath Alfred’s plate. “There, there, everything’s perfect.” 

 

Jason settled in his chair, paused, and then snapped his fingers suddenly. “Want parmesan?” 

 

“If you do not mind.”

 

Jason grinned, lopsided, and Alfred noticed one of his front teeth was chipped. Alfred wondered at that tooth. The Red Hood wore a helmet. He rose from his chair and returned with a plastic bag of finely-grated parmesan. “How much?”

 

Alfred leaned back so Jason could loom over his plate. "Just a dash, if you would, thank you."

 

Jason dipped his hand in and crumbled some over Alfred’s spaghetti. “I had to go buy a cheese grater for this. Couldn’t find mine, guess maybe I never had one? So that’s what I did with my afternoon.” 

 

"Heavens," Alfred murmured. "You didn't do all that just for an old man like me."

 

Jason sat back down. He grinned at Alfred again. There, again, was that tooth, and Alfred considered it—did Jason have a public identity that allowed him to go to the dentist? It was infuriating, how little he knew of Jason’s affairs. "'Course I did. You're worth it, Alfred." 

 

Alfred stared at his napkin, folded it in half. "So tell me, Master Jason, about what I am about to eat. It looks positively incredible."

 

Jason's face crumpled. It did not darken. It crumpled inwards like a sail when the wind died down, that heavy brow was left rumpled and not angry-looking, but somehow deeply and personally sad. "It's just 'Jason.' Just say my name."

 

Alfred closed his eyes for a long moment and when he opened them he knew his gaze was sharp because Jason flinched. Alfred said nothing.

 

"I'm sorry, I know we’ve been over this, I forgot," Jason mumbled, swirling spaghetti around his fork. "I'm—you can call me what you want." 

 

"I call you that because you are family," Alfred said. "You are and will always be family. I understand that is not your wish, and you do not have to reciprocate. But another unfortunate truth of the human condition is, not only do we have to breathe, but you cannot change what others feel by sheer force of will. I will consider you family until the day I die. If it truly makes you uncomfortable, I will stop. But do you know what I think?"

 

Jason stared at him. "What do you think," he said.

 

"I think you are scared by how much you love that reminder," Alfred said. He twisted his fork and took a bite of spaghetti. "My, this is delicious."

 

It was, indeed; Alfred could taste sweet basil and oregano and the flavors blended together wonderfully. The noodles were firm but not crunchy, and the fresh parmesan simply brought it together. 

Jason did not respond. Alfred offered him five minutes where they ate in silence, and then he said, “What is on your mind, my boy?”

 

Jason shrugged. “Bruce, I guess.” 

 

_You and I both._ “How so?” 

 

Jason sucked in a breath. He ran a hand through his hair, scuffed his boot against the floor. “He—he kind of—well, you know. There’s something he did, recently, and I actually—I know I said I’d tell you before I talked to him, but I got mad. But then I saw him and suddenly I wasn’t mad, I, I just… felt like I was twelve and seeing Batman for the first time again.” 

 

“So you hit him with a tire iron.” 

 

Jason smiled. “Oh, yeah, sure. Definitely.”

 

“He would never admit this to you,” Alfred said, “but you know, you are the reason the abdominal plate of the suit is more armored now. You bruised a rib.”

 

Jason threw his head back and laughed. “No shit! No fucking way. I was twelve, Jesus, what was the old suit made of, tissue paper?”

 

Alfred sipped his wine. “Evidently,” he said, quietly. The first Batsuit was not armored at all, and in Bruce’s first run-in with the GCPD, he’d been severely injured. Alfred had still thought Bruce was half-crazy in the first place, but to have the boy you thought of as a son return bleeding—

 

It could not have possibly been worse than to return to a son only to find him dead. 

 

“Well,” Jason said. “It, uh. It went okay.”

 

“That is good to hear.” 

 

“He called the city beautiful.” 

 

“He is wrong,” Alfred said. There was more heat in his voice than he intended. “This city is a vampiric beast.” 

 

Jason chuckled. “‘Vampiric beast.’ You’re so British.” 

 

“It _is_ where I am from.”

 

Jason stopped to chew a mouthful of spaghetti, and then said, “You never talk about where you’re from.”

 

“Of course I do,” Alfred said. “I question the American tastes I am surrounded by frequently.”

 

“No, I mean—your family. Everyone has one.”

 

Alfred thought of the baby, the one that was so tiny in Bruce’s arms, and must have looked even smaller in the filthy dumpster Bruce had found him in. “No, not everyone does.” 

 

Jason flinched, at that, and then he swallowed hard. There was a long silence before he said, “Read anything good, lately?”

 

That launched a discussion of _Artemis Fowl._ It was a series Alfred found enjoyable if implausible, but it was a thing he happily read while waiting in the car or waiting on supper to finish cooking. Jason had never read it but was interested, and Alfred offered a glowing recommendation, and then Jason was standing to clear the plates away and place the rest of the wine back in the fridge.

 

“I should say,” Alfred said, staring gimlet-eyed at the gleaming surface of the table, “that I did not mean you, when I said not everyone has a family. Bruce is fostering a boy, one he found abandoned. That is the child sorely lacking in family that I was thinking of, not you.” 

 

Jason snorted. “I know.”

 

“You know?”

 

“Listen, Al, I’m gonna be honest,” Jason said, leaning against the kitchen’s doorframe, “there’s not much you guys do that I don’t know about. I make it my business. I know there’s a new foster.”

 

“Ah,” Alfred said, feeling a bit slow. 

 

“I’m not mad about it.”

 

Alfred raised a brow. “Truly?”

 

“If Leslie says he found that baby in a dumpster and that baby was gonna die, good on him for picking him up,” Jason said. “But for a second, I thought you were talking about you.” 

 

It was a pointed statement, sharp and wet with blood from where it sliced home, and Alfred said as solemnly as he could, “I have a family. It is large and often dysfunctional but I believe with all of myself that it is filled with good, kind people, and I am proud to be part of it. You are that family, Master Jason.” 

 

Jason looked down at his boots. “Sure, whatever,” he said. “But maybe family isn’t always a good thing. ‘You get to choose your family’ is a nice slogan, but no the fuck you don’t. You have the family you’re born with and the family you pick because the family you’re born with fucking sucks, but you still call the family you’re born with _family,_ because that’s what they are. If we’re sharing what we think, you know what I think?”

 

“And what do you think, Master Jason?”

 

“Actually, it’s what I know. Your dad, his name was Jarvis, and your mother’s name was Helen. She died several years ago.”

 

Alfred hadn’t known. He had not spoken to his mother in several decades; it didn’t seem as long as it had been when he wasn’t considering it, but now it felt an age and a half, which it was. Truly, he almost felt bad—but it was only an _almost._

 

“But what I do know is, Helen Pennyworth could not have children. She was barren. So how does that explain you?”

 

“Your father,” Alfred rasped, “is not the only one with a penchant for adoption.” 

 

“I don’t think you were adopted. At least, like normal. I think, like that baby, you were found—so yeah, I think you were talking about you,” Jason said. “Even if you didn’t realize it.”

 

Alfred steepled his fingers. He lapsed into silence for a heavy, wandering moment, before he said, “What gave me away?”

 

“What?”

 

“Don’t be foolish,” Alfred snapped. “It is a simple question. In every failed disguise there is a fatal flaw that gives it away. What was mine?”

 

Jason looked at him. His eyes were distant. “You were an hour late and you never mentioned it.”

 

Alfred leaned back in his chair until it creaked. “Bollocks,” he said. “Was I really?”

 

“And you didn’t say a word.” 

 

Alfred looked down at his steepled hands. He remembered vividly, his mother _hissing you’re not even mine,_ the sharp sting that had followed after. 

 

“I think,” Alfred said, rising, “I shall take my leave.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Jason said. He did not sound particularly sorry. “I shouldn’t have pried.” 

 

“You should not have. If there is a lesson you need to learn, it is that you must let sleeping hounds lie,” Alfred said, sharply, and he left. 

 

He left with just those words and was numbed by things he had not thought about in years; the air outside was too hot but he barely felt it, barely felt the pain in his knee, barely felt himself sliding into his car. He was fumbling with his phone and pressing the call button before he thought about what he was doing, and if he had thought, even for a moment, he would not have done it. 

 

_“Al,”_ came Bruce’s voice, from the other line. He sounded vaguely surprised. _“I thought tonight was poker night.”_

 

“I was—visiting Master Jason,” Alfred said. His voice was rushed. 

 

_“Oh.”_

 

“Master Damian called. He wants your—” 

 

_“The damn anacondas, he won’t shut up about them,”_ Bruce said, aggravated. _“Listen, Al. You don’t sound—do you want me to—”_

 

“You know I always wanted you,” Alfred said. “It was never a question. The second your parents wrote me into the will, I wanted you. You were never an unwanted child. It was never—that was never—”

 

_“Al,”_ Bruce said softly. _“What’s this about?”_   


“It,” Alfred said. He stopped, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “I am not entirely sure. Goodness me.”

 

_“Come home. You need to get some rest.”_

 

“Indeed,” Alfred whispered. “But you were always wanted.”

 

_“I know.”_

 

Alfred hung up without a goodbye, and he drove his car to the nearest convenience store, intending to buy a pack of cigarettes. But he sat in the parking lot digging through his pockets and the center console, realizing he’d forgotten his wallet. All he came up with was a dollar and fifty cents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings include: brief non-graphic child abuse mention, and also child abandonment, and Batman sings Folsom Prison Blues. No, I am not joking.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: childhood sexual assault that occurs to one main character and one less-than-main character, child abandonment/criminal neglect, PTSD, depictions of violence (that never actually physically occur) and the fact that Bruce literally never puts his accidentally acquired baby down. You go, Bruce. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it, and uh. Well. Sorry I'm fuckin like this, man. And re: timeline stuff, I basically picked 1963 as the year for Bruce to be born basically because I can, and it's just easy to have a number to refer to. Bruce is about 45-46ish here, in my estimation. Do with that what u will.


End file.
